


Won't Fade Away

by Deannie



Series: One Day at Red Cliff [7]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hate Speech, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 02:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josiah’s hands are fists at his sides. “JD didn’t really say.” He hands the telegram over to Chris, who reads it for me, and for Buck, who’s hovering as well.</p><p>“McA dead,” Chris reads. “Attacked Nathan in jail and had to be shot off. Threatened danger to town. Ezra and me on watch. When will you return?”</p><p>“‘Ezra and me,’” Buck repeats. JD didn’t say a word about where Nathan is. “Shit.”</p><p>“I wired back,” Josiah says into the quiet. “Told him we’d be there tomorrow night.”</p><p>“Tomorrow night might not be soon enough,” Chris says, crumpling the telegram.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Fade Away

**Author's Note:**

> FINALLY! It's finished! This last one was very hard to write. I wanted to tie up loose ends and all of that and it was just very... HARD!
> 
> But it's done now. So enjoy!

Miner’s Hollow is smaller than it was last time I rode through. Guess the silver in those hills wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“Used to be a healer in town,” Josiah says, his voice deeper than normal and his big old frame wracked by coughs. Buck said he almost drowned at Red Cliff when the spring busted through the landslide, and I’m afraid, more and more, he’s gone and got lung fever on us. He’s pale and sweating and breathing too damn hard.

“You and Vin find him as soon as we drop Goff with the sheriff,” Chris orders.

“Hell, I’m fine, Cowboy,” I reply, pissed at the worry. Ain’t like I’ve never been shot before.

“Shut up and go, Tanner,” Chris bites back. And I shut up. Because he’s in a mood to skin a mountain lion right now.

“I hope Miss Sally’s still running that boarding house,” Buck says, a little less of the usual ladies man to his voice. Even he’s too tired for any of that.

“As long as there’s still a saloon,” Chris says quietly. He hasn’t said much since we caught up with Goff. And damn, but Goff has said plenty. Not sure how none of us has shot him yet.

“I could sure use a drink,” Goff says smugly. He’s up to something, but Hell if we can figure out what it is. Got no men left to him as far as we can see, so he can’t be looking for rescue. Hell, maybe he’s just looking to piss us off enough to shoot him and save him from the noose.

Chris doesn’t answer him, of course, but his jaw tightens a little more. Gonna need to find a barber to take out those busted teeth if he ain’t careful. He leads the way to the jail and it’s clear our telegram got here okay. There’s a bear of a man, with blond hair longer than mine, sitting out front. He nods up to Chris.

“I take it you are Larabee?” he calls pleasantly, standing and leaning against the porch support. Lord, he’s huge. Accent is something Swedish or thereabouts and hs voice booms bigger than Josiah’s. “My name is Don Blake, and I am the sheriff here. I can take your prisoner for the night, to leave you and your men to recuperate. I have heard that the judge will be in Four Corners by the end of the week.”

Chris nods and dismounts, starting to yank Goff down hard before he even unties the man’s hands from the horn. “We’ll be heading out again tomorrow.” He gestures to Josiah, who looks like he’s staying in the saddle through pure grit. “You still have a healer hereabouts?”

Blake looks Josiah up and down. “Alas, Mrs. Garring died in the spring. We have a new doctor whose office is next to the general store.” He smiles like he’s talking about a kid brother. “He is young, a bit overeager, but he will offer a wealth of medical knowledge and a kind touch.”

Right.

Chris pegs me with a glare and I almost fight him. But it ain’t worth it. And honestly, I wouldn’t say no to something to take the edge off this damn shoulder of mine.

“You keep a close eye on Goff,” I hear Chris telling Blake, as me and Josiah head over to the doctor’s place.

Keep a close eye, all right. I’ve got a feeling this whole thing isn’t over yet.

*******

The saloon is cooler than the heat outside, but I’m still sweating. I find Chris and Buck just where I’d figure to find them—table against a wall with a view of the whole room. The doctor gave me some concoction that was damn near _more_ foul than anything Nathan’s ever made me drink, but it definitely knocked the pain back a notch.

“Where’s Josiah?” Buck asks, sliding a glass full of scotch my way. I motion to the bartender for some water to go with it and take a seat.

“Doc says he ain’t got lung fever, but it’s a near thing. Something called bronchitis. Got him dosed up and sleeping for now.”

“Is he going to be ready to ride tomorrow?” Chris asks, the words harder than I know he means them to be. None of us are looking to lose anyone in this—not after all we been through—but just getting it finished, getting Goff to some sort of damn justice for all the evil he’s done…

It’s a damn hard thing to wait for even a day longer.

“The doc doesn’t think so, but Josiah sure as hell does.” I knock back half the scotch, feeling it hit the herbs in my stomach. Damn, I’m tired. “He’ll be ready to go.”

“What about you?” Chris asked, again that flat impatience to his words.

“Hell, I already told you I was fine,” I all but bark back at him. Guess I’m a little impatient myself. Doc groused a little about the joint and how the swelling ain’t gone down, but I reckon, long as I can heft a rifle once it’s healed, I don’t need to worry about much else.

“Well you look like hell,” Buck offers, unasked for. “Got two rooms over at Miss Sally’s. Why don’t you use one.”

I’d complain that it was too damn early to sleep, but the truth is, I could use it. I finish off the scotch and drain the water the bartender dropped off, and nod. “Anything from home?” I ask first. I’m figuring they ain’t had bad news, the way they’re acting.

“McAuliffe hasn’t managed to die of stupid yet, but it sounds like he will soon,” Buck tells me. “Quiet otherwise.”

“I got a bad feeling that won’t last,” I say, not even really meaning to let the words out of my mouth.

Chris stares at the bottle in front of him, a dark look in his eyes. “Ain’t the only one,” he says quietly. He looks me in the eyes and I see the worry stark in his gaze. “Get some sleep,” he orders me. “We’ll ride at dawn.”

Get the hell home before the world crashes in again.

******

Josiah’s at the livery before me the next morning, his horse saddled up and his cough less dire than it was yesterday.

“Is Chris collecting our prisoner?” he asks.

Still sounds like he’s been eating ground glass, though. The stable boys are settling the rest of our horses and Peso head butts me as they finish with him and push him toward me.

“I reckon Buck is along to keep him from killing the man,” I reply, leaning on the fence and looking at the jail and the light burning there as the night gives way to daylight. The door finally opens and Buck and Chris come out with Goff in tow. Damn man looks almost happy.

“Hell of a nice day for a ride,” he remarks, as Buck throws him into his saddle and ties him down. “I know a great place to stop for lunch. Nice little stream, a stand of trees so thick you’d think they were a forest.”

I marvel again that Chris ain’t shot the man. He just mounts up and the rest of us follow. We’re an hour out of town before he speaks again, and his voice is a little too loud to be casual.

Reckon the game’s about to start again.

“We’ll head for Youngstown,” he says, eyes on me while my eyes are on Goff, being ponied by Josiah a few paces ahead of us. The bastard’s spine stiffens just a little bit and I nod slightly. Where the hell he got more men and where he’s got them waiting, I don’t know, but it’s clear he took the time we were hunting him to plan an ambush somewhere. Explains why we found him so easy when we did.

He probably figured we’d come down here to Miners Hollow and go straight on to Hadleyville, trying to shave time off the trip. Wipe us out and take off into the sunset… Would have been a hell of a plan.

“I figured it’s the safest route,” Chris continues. He doesn’t normally discuss orders like this and it starts my wheels turning. “What do you think?”

And he never asks an opinion about them.

“I don’t know, Chris,” I reply, watching Goff’s back relax. Figure we can ambush his men instead of the other way round. The look in Chris’s eyes says the same. “Hadleyville is closer. Josiah’s feeling poorly, town’s all but unprotected with Ezra and Nathan in the states they’re in.” Laying it on thick, but it can only work in our favor to make him think his got the upper hand. “Figure faster’s better than safer.”

Chris nods approvingly. “All right then,” he says, giving me a look that says I should keep my eyes open—like I wasn’t doing that before. “Let’s get some miles under our feet before it gets too damn hot to think.”

“Gonna scout around ahead of us,” I tell him, casual. “Peso’s damn sick of this plodding along.”

“And we thought Ezra spoiled his horse,” Buck puts in as he rides up smoothly to flank Goff. I’m sure he heard every word—and all the ones we didn’t say, probably.

“It ain’t pampering,” I tell him, satisfied that the three of them are ready for anything. Hell, even Josiah looks alert and waiting. “It’s self preservation. Damn boy’ll throw me if he has to walk much longer.”

I dig my heels in just right, and Peso bucks and snorts angrily before racing to the top of the ridge ahead of us. I been hanging out with Ezra long enough to sell a con when I have to. The horse is ornery, I have no choice but to run him all over the countryside, right?

Once we’re out of sight, I slow Peso down a little and pat his head in apology for the harsh treatment. He shakes his mane at me and urges me to let him back into a gallop, and with a laugh, I oblige. I shouldn’t be running him with my shoulder like this, but he’s been tamed too long on this trip.

Hell, maybe I do pamper him. Just a little.

*******

“Thought we wouldn’t see you again until we hit town!” Buck calls to me as I trot Peso into the quick camp they’ve set up for lunch. The flip words go along with a sharp stare and reassuring nod. Nothing of note happened with them.

Goff’s nervous, though—not enough that most people could tell, but I can see that he’s waiting to hear if I found anything. Ambush must be close.

Josiah can see it too, as he sets up a pan and starts to cooking up some beans. He’s watching Goff a lot less obviously than Goff is watching me.

“See anything out there, Vin?” Buck asks as he ground ties the horses and silently checks his gun.

Goff is sweating and I let him. For a second, anyway.

“Nothing but cactus and sage,” I reply lightly, watching Goff finally take a breath and start relaxing. “At least Peso has stopped biting at me quite so bad.”

“We should be in Hadleyville by nightfall,” Josiah breaks in. Voice is a little less painful to listen to, though he follows up the words with a cough that’d shake Hell. “I do hope they have a boarding house with better beds.”

“What’s wrong with Miss Sally’s beds?” Buck asks, offended. He’s taking a good look around, but we’re in the middle of a nice flat plain. I could probably hit someone from the ridge over yonder, but nobody’s running down on us without us having plenty of time to take them out before they got here. “They’re right comfy.”

“I think you might be confusing the company you share it with actual comfort, Buck,” Josiah says.

Chris doesn’t say anything. And strangely, neither does Goff, though his cocky smile is trying to creep back. Damn, I think I know where the ambush is going to be. That canyon about two and an half hours from here, a straight shot to Hadleyville.

Perfect. For us, that is.

I sidle up to the cowboy as he scans the horizon. “Your threats to gag him finally bear some fruit?” I ask, quiet yet loud enough for all to hear, poking a thumb toward Goff and trying to calm Chris down. He’s wound too tight, and that’s never a good thing in a fight.

I know he went through hell during that whole thing at Red Cliff—all of us did. But I can’t figure out exactly why it’s such a problem now, when we’re all fine or getting there.

“Chris?” I say it in barely a whisper, and follow when he walks away from me. “Something you ain’t telling us? Because last I checked, this isn’t much more than a straight shot to home with a break to bust a few heads.”

He barks a laugh and there’s an edge of pain to it. “Last time that happened, we all nearly died,” he points out, quiet enough that the boys can’t hear him. Buck’s talking up a storm, distracting Josiah and even Goff, and I reckon he sees that Chris needs to get something off his chest here.

“We done that already this week,” I tell him easily. “This time we’ll be ready for them.”

“With only two able-bodied men?” he asks. “Against how many, this time?”

“Did you go and break something while I wasn’t watching?” I reply harshly. “I’m fine, cowboy, and so is Josiah.” I take a deep breath. “And the sooner this damn thing is over, the better, don’t you think?”

He stays silent, not facing me. If he changes the subject, if he ignores what I said, I’ll let him—it’ll all come out in that demon bottle he sometimes climbs into after times like this. But he ain’t the man he was when we met three years ago, and after a long moment, his chin drops to his chest.

“It’s like I can’t get the image of it out of my head,” he says finally. “Damn stupid, but that whole time Josiah and I were headed for Nathan—the whole ride back—I knew what Buck was going to find. I knew what they’d look like, burnt and blown and…” He snorts hard enough to rock himself back some. “Ezra wrote the telegram, this time. ‘McA continues to display usual judgment. Nathan surprisingly unimpressed.’ Penny pinching fool, but he still finds twenty words to take the place of two. Even if it costs him a nickel apiece.”

I smile, understanding the real meaning behind the fond annoyance. He’d worked so damn hard to come to terms with losing his family again. When they walked straight out of the fire this time, he wasn’t sure what to do next.

“Sometimes I think they should charge him extra for the fancy words,” I say, my mirth calculated to make him grin. He does, but it’s a little weak. “Goff hasn’t bested us yet, Chris,” I tell him truthfully. “And he ain’t going to now—no matter how many men he’s got waiting for us.” I look back at the fire, where Buck is telling some damn tall tale about Miss Sally and her boarding house.

“Any chance you know where those men are waiting?” Chris asks, a more stable sound to his words.

“Of course,” I reply, turning back to him with a smile. “All we gotta do is wait for them to come to us.”

Because all I want is this damn thing over with.

*****

Turned out it was only five guys. I don’t know what the hell Goff was thinking. Must just have been that desperate.

The canyon would have been the perfect ambush spot if he’d had twice as many men, but with only the five, there were too many places for me and Buck to slide into the holes and get the drop on them. We let Goff think we were walking in blind until the last second, until we got to the little narrowing of the walls where we’d be out of sight of pretty much anyone looking at us from the canyon itself.

Josiah didn’t bother to gag him, just slammed a fist into his face and kept him from falling off his horse while Buck and I headed for the rocks above us.

Goff’s awake now, silent and fuming, and three of his boys are riding their horses dead-belly down. The two that lived are tied like their leader and we look like a damn wagon train, each of us ponying a horse or two.

Chris is finally breathing easier, and when Sheriff Jensen greets us with a laugh, he actually grins wryly in response.

“Last I heard, you only had one asshole you were looking to hang, Larabee! What happened?”

“Don’t look at us—it was their idea,” Buck replies with a smile.

Jensen pulls Buck’s prisoner off his horse as Josiah wearily gathers the reins to the body-bearing ones. Jensen nods to him, blue eyes flashing a little worry for a man he’s known longer than I’ve been in the territory. “You need help getting the rest of those to the undertaker?”

Josiah shakes his head. “No thanks, Jake,” he replies, coughing harsh and long before he starts down the street to take care of the dead.

Jensen looks after him, then gives me and my damn sling a once over, noticing the tension that we’ve all got a bit of still in us. He runs a hand through his blond hair, making the short ends stick up even more than usual. “JD just telegraphed that you all were bringing in a dangerous prisoner and needed a place to put him up for the night,” he says to Buck as we haul them all in. “Something else going on I should know about?”

I look at Chris as he shoves Goff into the jailhouse ahead of him. He’s still angry, but that edge of hurt and fear is finally sliding away.

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with,” I tell him. I’m hoping Chris’ll be better once we’re home and he sees for himself that everyone came through all right.

By the time we’ve got them all locked up and have heard the latest gossip from Hadleyville, Josiah’s back, and I stiffen up suddenly at the dark look in his eyes.

“What happened?” Chris asks, like he knew this wasn’t over. Damn it.

“McAuliffe is dead,” he says quietly.

“God damn you, Larabee!” Goff growls. I turn to face him and see his hands gripping the bars like they were somebody’s neck. “I’ll kill that damn darky for this.” The man behind him looks just as angry.

Hell, Nathan… He’s going to beat himself up for this worse than Goff ever could—and it ain’t his damn fault.

“You made your own beds,” Chris replies, not even looking at Goff, clearly thinking the same thoughts I am. We need to get home, but having Goff in our jailhouse ain’t gonna help Nathan in the slightest.

“We need to talk,” he says, nodding to Jensen and all but shoving us all out the door. We walk halfway to the saloon before he stops grinding his teeth long enough to ask what happened. I figure gangrene caught up with him finally—from what JD sent when we were in Gosset Creek, it sounded like McAuliffe wouldn’t let anybody treat his damn wounds at all.

“He attacked Nathan,” Josiah says, flooring me with the answer. “JD shot him.”

“Damn,” Chris whispers, echoed by Buck but with more colorful words. “Is Nathan all right?”

Josiah’s hands are fists at his sides. “JD didn’t really say.” He hands the telegram over to Chris and I stand behind him, trying to puzzle out the words—I just ain’t that fast at reading yet. Chris notices and reads it for me, and for Buck, who’s hovering as well.

“McA dead,” Chris reads. “Attacked Nathan in jail and had to be shot off. Threatened danger to town. Ezra and me on watch. When will you return?”

“‘Ezra and me,’” Buck repeats. JD didn’t say a word about where Nathan is. “Shit.”

“I wired back for more information,” Josiah says into the quiet. “Told him we’d be there tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night might not be soon enough,” Chris says, crumpling the telegram.

“If he had more men, he’d’ve used them,” Buck argues. I’m thinking the same thing. No reason to split his forces. If he had more men, he could have plowed through us and still taken down Four Corners afterward.

“Larabee!” Jensen’s worried bark carries down the street toward us and we turn as one, walking back to where he’s waiting, just outside the jail where he can still keep an eye on the prisoners. “I think you might have a problem.”

He holds out a small pile of wanted posters and Chris takes them angrily.

“I couldn’t get names out of Goff’s boys in there, so I went through the pictures I’ve got. Vernon Carradine and Milton McAuliffe.”

“God damn it,” Buck growls under his breath.

Jensen nods grimly. “Carradine’s their cousin. And he has five brothers.”

I lean over to look at the posters as Chris does. Jesus, could things get worse? “I saw two of those guys in Goff’s crew,” I point out. I don’t add that both of them died at Red Cliff.

“This one,” Chris replies, pointing at a man who’s clearly kin to those prisoners. “Hiram Carradine? I killed him on the Perdido.” He holds up a drawing of a young man who’s seen too much. “Didn’t even see this one—Micah.” He slaps the posters on his leg. “He’s still out there.” Looking for revenge….

Chris stands stock still for a long moment before turning to Jensen. “Jake—”

Jensen shakes his head. “Go, Larabee,” he commands him. “If you cut straight through, you can make it home before dawn.”

“I can’t ask you to—” Chris starts, gesturing at the jail.

“Who the hell said you were asking?” Jensen replies. “I have my own crew, Chris,” he says quietly. “We’ll take care of these ones. Get the hell home before anything else happens. I’ll send a wire to JD.”

Chris shakes his hand. “Thank you.”

And we’re on our horses and riding before any of us can start to really worry about what’s happening in the town ahead of us.

******

The gun shot is a surprise in the early hours. We’re more than three miles from Four Corners, which seems a strange place for Carradine to be if he’s going after the town.

I duck instinctively as I swear I feel the wind of the bullet whistling past my face. Buck yells, but I can’t tell if it’s in surprise or pain. The land around us is dark in the predawn and it’s damn near impossible to see anything. Silence falls again, and I can feel Peso jittering under me.

“Get off the horses,” I call quietly, watching the silhouette of each animal shrink as Chris, Buck, and Josiah heed me. I slide toward the nearest rock, trying to figure out where the bullet came from.

“Come on,” I growl after a long moment of nothing. “Come on, you fool, shoot.”

Someone does. Sounds like Buck’s pistol.

A rifle answers it and I get a bead on the muzzle flash, firing and hearing a bark of pain in response.

“I don’t think he was talking to you, Buck,” Josiah murmurs, a smile in his gravelly croak.

“Got results, though, didn’t it?” Buck replies, blithe as can be. Sounds like he must have been hit with that first bullet, though.

“You okay, Buck?” Chris calls, moving toward me as the sky above us starts to get light. I ain’t sure the sniper’s done with us yet, and I hold my breath until Chris finds his way to me.

“Clipped me,” Buck replies. “I’m fine. Be better if we could get this done with and get back to town.”

“He’s here to keep us from doing just that,” Josiah pronounces.

“Yep,” I agree, waiting for the next shot. I’m betting Carradine has a crew of his own.

Buck ain’t near as patient as me, and it’s not more than a minute before I see his shadow shifting, like he’s about to stand.

“Keep your ass down, Buck,” Chris barks.

“Aw, come on, Chris—” His whine is cut short as we hear gunfire in the distance.

“We’re out of time, pard. Sorry,” Buck calls. He stands, gun cocked and ready in the growing light, drawing the gunman’s focus like a damn idiot.

He’s lucky I see the glint of rising sun off the sniper’s rifle and fire before he can. He’s damn _un_ lucky that he just did something so dumb in front of Chris.

“We’re going to have words later, Wilmington,” Chris growls as I go and check the dead body. I don’t listen to Buck’s response because he can’t defend himself against that kind of stupid and I know he doesn’t really want to.

“It ain’t Carradine,” I call, heading back to where they’re remounting and reloading.

“God damn,” Buck groans. “How many men do these guys have?”

“Hopefully not enough,” Josiah says.

And then we’re off and galloping toward town and the sounds of too many guns I can’t identify. Ezra’s in there with his Remington, and while I can hear a few different Colts, I’m figuring that JD’s there as well. I count at least three rifles, and they could be anyone’s.

“You better be okay, Nathan,” I mutter as we reach the edge of town.

Chris ignores me, though I know he heard me, and gestures for me and Buck to head for the sky. I scale the side of the hotel from long practice and head for my favorite spot, watching carefully as Buck slides down the alley by the saloon and reappears on the roof after a minute. Josiah and Chris are staying on the ground, moving down toward the livery, and I bless the sunrise as I take stock of what’s going on.

Ezra is holed up just inside the telegraph office, taking his time with his shots, it looks like. He’s got no fancy jacket, which just looks wrong for some reason. And he ain’t moving as quick as he usually does—I’m hoping it’s because he’s still hurting from Red Cliff, not because he’s hurt all over again.

JD is pinned down by my wagon, and I fire off a shot and wing one of the seven men who’ve taken up places around the livery itself, taking the pressure off him. He looks up and sees me, and waves awkwardly with his splinted arm, like he ain’t in the middle of a firefight. One of the men starts to climb the stairs to the clinic, and a well-placed shot from the other direction, probably Chris or Josiah, has him thrown back to the dirt. He doesn’t get up.

Ezra sticks his head out and fires, hitting one of them in the chest, but the man fires back before he dies and Ezra slams back into shadows of the telegraph office. I breathe slow and careful a couple of times, waiting, then curse when he doesn’t reappear.

“Put down your guns, Carradine!” Chris yells, an urgency to his voice. I don’t know if he saw Ezra disappear, but he knows we need to get this done before anything more happens.

God damn, where’s Nathan?

“You go to hell!” one of the gunmen yells, firing wildly from his hiding place by the granary toward Chris’s position by the jail. Looks like Micah Carradine, though I can’t tell for sure from this angle. “That damn darky is gonna pay and so are the rest of you monkey lovers!”

A bullet flies from the top of the saloon and comes close to taking off the man’s head. “Now that’s just plain rude of you!” Buck bellows, following up his shot. “You watch your language.”

“Nathan didn’t kill your cousin,” JD yells from under the wagon. I get thrown back to the day I met Chris and Nathan all of a sudden, rocking back to the present as the door of the clinic opens and a hunched form staggers out.

“Yes, I did.”

Nathan’s voice is strong, but the rest of him has seen better days. He’s shirtless and the bandage around his stomach is dotted with blood. As I watch, the dots start connecting. He’s started himself bleeding again. But the rifle in his hands is rock solid, where it’s aimed at Carradine’s head.

“Nathan—” Josiah begins.

“No, Josiah,” Nathan interrupts. “No, he’s right. It’s my fault McAuliffe’s dead.”

“It’s your fault they’re _all_ dead, damn you!” Carradine growls. “Hell, you may have killed Dermott yourself, but Hiram, Jasper, Eli— _my brothers_?! You might as well have done them, too!” He looks over at Chris and laughs a hollow, death-wish laugh. “Hell, I’m figuring I’m the only one left now, since your friends there are still alive.” He brandishes his gun, and I swallow hard to stop myself from ending him. I look up and see Buck with his own rifle trained on the boy. Best move closer if I can…

“Do you know what it’s like, nigger?” Carradine asks, pain thick in his voice as I leap down to the next roof, working my way closer. “Do you know what it’s like to lose _everyone_?”

Damn.

Nathan is dead silent for a minute, and when he speaks, I’m not surprised to hear the anger. “It’s bigots like you who lost me my family in the first place,” he grates, straightening up despite the pain I know it’s causing him. “And then your cousin came along and nearly lost me the new one I got here.”

I have to slide behind the chimney of the Clarion’s building to get past it, and I look across to see Buck moving toward the livery on the other side of the street. He raises his rifle real sudden like, then drops his aim and I look to the clinic as it comes in sight again. I don’t see anything, but he must have, if only for a second.

“Darky like you ain’t no kin to a white man!” The yell comes from the shadows. Somebody was hidden better than the rest of them, and a shot goes right past Nathan’s side. I catch a glimpse of the man’s gun barrel and my own shot doesn’t miss.

“No one else has to get hurt here, Micah!” Chris bellows, angry at the loss of life. “How many more people are gonna die before we end this?”

Micah stands clear of his shelter, and I bring my rifle up to my aching shoulder…

“Just one more, Larabee,” he growls, raising his gun to aim at Nathan, who’s barely on his feet. “If you can even be called a man, you God forsaken—”

—Nathan gets there before me, dropping the last of the Carradines with a bullet to the heart. His face crumples in a pain that has nothing to do with his injuries.

Then one of the other gunmen raises his gun and a few things happen all at once. I retrain my aim, drilling him through the shoulder. A shadow drops from the roof of the livery and drives Nathan to the floorboards. And a bullet flies from across the street, straight through where Nathan’s skull would have been without the shadow’s help. Josiah’s rifle barks once into the silence that comes after, and I watch a body fall from behind the barrel in front of the mercantile.

“Put. Your weapons. Down.” Chris is tired, and fed up, and the rest of these men seem to sense that. A handful of guns hit the dirt and every man of them puts his hands up. JD and Josiah come forward to take them all to the jail and I find my way down the side of the building I’m on, sprinting for the livery. Buck hops from the boarding house onto the clinic roof and gets there first, but his isn’t the voice I hear talking to Nathan as I mount the stairs.

“Just what the hell did you think you were doing, Mr. Jackson?”

Ezra sounds pissed and tired and hurt, but seeing as I thought he was lying dead on the floor of the telegraph office, I ain’t complaining. He’s kneeling beside Nathan, a hand mashing on the blood-soaked bandages around Nathan’s middle. The back of his own shirt is dotted all over in red.

Nathan’s eyes are glassy. I ain’t sure he knew _what_ he was doing.

“He was right,” he wheezes sadly, fever-talk making him sound so convincing. “I killed McAuliffe.” He chuckles in this cold empty way that sounds more like Chris at his most depressed than him. “Killed ‘em all. A whole damn family.”

“McAuliffe killed himself,” Buck growls at him. “And so did the rest of them.” Turning his head, he bellows, “Josiah! Get the hell up here!” He smiles tightly at Ezra and lifts the man’s hands away, so he can take over pressing down on the bandages. “Figured you for a pine box when I saw you go down at the telegraph,” he says to Ezra, eyes on Nathan. “Didn’t expect you to drop down out of the heavens and save Nathan’s life like that.”

Ezra snorts, but he’s hurting. He leans away from Nathan, and I don’t see anything that makes me think he was hit today. The dots on his back are starting to connect though, if slowly. Jumping off the roof onto Nathan’s back didn’t do him any favors. “Yes, well, I’d’ve been a fool to remain where I was so patently not wanted, wouldn’t I?” He looks up as Chris appears at the top of the stairs.

“Mr. Larabee,” he greets him, bright with false cheer and exhaustion.

“Ezra,” Chris returns, a quirk to his lips. “Looks like you had some excitement.”

Ezra shrugs and whines a little at the pain it causes him. “I believe we’d had worse. And in recent history, at that.”

Chris grins, that last bit of tension and fear sloughing off him as he sees what I see. “You gonna fall on your ass there?” he asks with a laugh in his voice.

“Very probably.” Ezra does sit on his butt, leaving the doctoring to Buck until Josiah gets here. He hisses as his back hits the wall of the clinic, and I’m betting he leaves a smear of blood after him. “Nothing for it, though. We seem to be short one excellent healer.” That should be flip, but the worry when his eyes fall on Nathan is obvious. He looks back up at Chris.

“I believe I speak for everyone when I say we are very glad you’re home.”

Chris snorts, looking down at Nathan with a dark glare.

“So are we,” he murmurs. “Damn glad this is over.”

******

It’s been nearly three days, and I think we’re all figuring out that it may not actually be over for a while.

Judge Travis got here yesterday, just before Jensen and his crew rode in from Hadleyville with Goff and what’s left of the Carradine and McAuliffe families. Nathan missed that part entirely, thank God. Milton McAuliffe was spewing hate and threatening to string him up and gut him. Goff and Carradine were quieter about it, but it all amounted to the same thing. Nathan was black, Nathan was to blame for all of it. And hell, even if he wasn’t, the only good black man was a dead black man.

God damn, some people are just plain evil.

Travis must have thought so, too, because it took twenty minutes to present the evidence this morning and only ten for him to give Goff the noose and McAuliffe and Carradine life at Yuma.

Everybody’s healing, slowly. JD’s broken arm is nothing, as far as he’s concerned, and Ezra’s biggest problem with the burns and cuts is that his back hurts too damn much to wear a jacket. Leaves him underdressed, he says, but I think it’s being under _armed_ that’s bugging him more. Buck and I are fine—hell, we were always fine. And Josiah’s cough has dwindled to something that don’t keep the whole town up at night.

Yeah, everybody’s healing. Except Nathan.

JD says he still doesn’t know how McAuliffe had the strength to grab Nathan’s knife and half gut him like that, not when the man was so wasted by the infection running through him. Nathan went into the cell because they thought the bastard had finally died. Turns out he wanted to take one last soul with him on his trip to Hell.

He may still.

Nathan hasn’t really woken since the gunfight—just enough to get some water and medicine in him from time to time. He was lucky he was slit by his own, clean, knife, but Nettie’s stitching didn’t hold up to that battle. Josiah redid the needlework, but infection’s set in anyway. It has to run its course. And I ain’t sure it’s what’s keeping him down anyway.

Even unconscious, Nathan’s tortured. His eyes dart back and forth and his hands clench, like he’s living it all over again. It’s nearing two in the morning and I’m up here with him by myself, standing by the window and watching him beat himself up in his dreams as he slips a little farther away from where he should be.

I remember the feeling, though I didn’t have the luxury of fever and sickness to explain my choice. There’s a lot of ways to fade off into nothing without going through the pain of killing yourself…

Nathan needs to know he ain’t the only one to feel like this. He needs to know we understand— _I_ understand, at least. God knows Josiah sure must. Your demons ain’t always on the inside and you still gotta live with it once you stuff them back where they belong. I slide the brim of my hat through my fingers, remembering the day I picked it up off the ground next to a man I’d killed in anger.

I don’t even realize I’m talking until the words come out and his tossing slows, like he’s listening as he sleeps.

“I remember every second of the day I found the army lieutenant who raped Jerusha ‘til she died. I remember every damn thing I did to him, every bit of anger and pain and horror I packed into it.” I snort, the pain of a decade past coming right back to me. “Took him almost as long to die as it did her. And I watched every minute of it.” Nathan’s head turns toward me, but I don’t think he’s waking. “And then it was like I woke up and saw what I did and couldn’t believe I had that evil inside me.”

I sit in the chair beside him.

“I got that in my head now, Nathan,” I tell him. “Always. I could tell myself he deserved it—and he did. I could tell myself he brought the whole hell down on his own head. But the shit of it was that _I did that._ ” I sigh, remembering the months after, floating like a wraith through my days. Waiting to fade away. “Mammedaty told me I had to make a choice. Die over the horror of what I did, or live trying never to make the same choice again. Just lying here floating, waiting to fade away…? You can’t do this, Nathan.” I lean in, feeling the heat coming off him. “Because you won’t fade away. You’ll float, and we’ll wait, and all the good you could do, all the chances you have to make amends and choose not to let the evil out again? They’re gone.”

He lets out a long breath, but other than that, nothing changes. I sit back, settling in.

“So we’ll be here, Nathan,” I say, not bothering to whisper in the night. He needs to hear me, and it ain’t no secret, anyway. “We’ll wait right here until you decide whether you’re going to give up, or try to pull yourself together and come on back.”

I relax, feeling the dull ache of my healing shoulder against the hard chairback. “But you know we ain’t a patient bunch, Doc,” I murmur, feeling the sleep take me over slowly. “At some point, Chris is gonna slap you silly. If Josiah doesn’t get there first.”

The night folds over me, and I dream of Jerusha, an innocent girl with corn-blonde hair…

******

A cough wakes me. It’s weak and it sounds like it hurts like hell.

“Nathan?” Josiah’s rumble follows, and I try to shake the sleep from my brain.

It’s not quite dawn, and Josiah is supposed to be sleeping himself. Nathan coughs that pitiful cough again, and I sit up, leaning forward as Josiah does the same on the other side of the bed.

“ ‘siah?” Nathan’s damn confused, eyes closed against the sound of his own voice. “What…?”

“Drink this before you try too hard to think,” Josiah tells him, lifting Nathan’s head high enough to pour some water down him.

Nathan doesn’t cough again, but he does open his eyes, looking first at Josiah then at me. “You’re back?” he asks, weak as water.

Josiah’s soft chuckle warms the room. “I think that’s my line, my friend,” he says gently. “You’ve been sleeping a while.”

Nathan’s head rolls carefully from side to side. “Not sleeping,” he tells us. “Floating…” He meets my eyes for a brief second before his close and he starts to drift off again. Josiah’s smile as he puts a hand to Nathan’s forehead confirms what I already know. He’s coming back, cooling down…

“Ain’t gonna… fade away so easy,” he promises, making me smile myself.

Because I’ve never heard Nathan make a promise he didn’t fight like hell to keep.

*********

the end

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot to note that the story of Jerusha is hinted at in Creeping Life and also in Proof and Memories, but the story where you find out what really happened isn't published yet.
> 
> Hopefully it will be at some point.


End file.
